Due to the development of multimedia, various types of information are supplied through a network. These types of information include, representatively, sound, text or images. In karaoke communications, for example, music titles and words are text information, accompaniment melodies and background choruses are sound information, and background motion pictures are image information.
In karaoke communications, these various kinds of information are simultaneously distributed through the network so that each type of information is reproduced on the terminal unit. By providing synchronization mutually between these different types of information, the color of the words is varied or the motion picture is varied as the music progresses.
Conventionally, in order to provide synchronization, clocks have been provided in the respective programs for processing each of the different types of information, i.e., sound, text and images, whereby the synchronizing process has been made according to the time information of clocks. Using this configuration, wherein the system load is increased or so, there is possible mutual disagreement between the clocks, thereby causing so-called synchronizing deviation and hence deviated timing of the output of each type of information occurs. Thus, this results in disagreement between sound and images.
Meanwhile, sound, text, image data or the like is read out by accessing, every time, a file according to a command thus requiring time in processing. Furthermore, because the files have been separately prepared on a data-type basis, there also has been a problem with file management.